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Entries with the tag: mike van ryn

The Toronto Maple Leafs announced Wednesday that defenceman Mike Van Ryn has elected not to play in the 2010-11 hockey season.

Van Ryn, 31, has been rehabilitating his left knee after undergoing an osteotomy (knee re-alignment) on October 22, 2009. He did not appear in a game this past season due to the injury. The native of London, Ontario joined the Leafs in a trade with the Florida Panthers on September 2, 2008.

Montreal Canadiens forward Tom Kostopoulos has been suspended for three games, without pay, as a result of being assessed a game misconduct during NHL game #197 against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Nov. 8, the National Hockey League announced today.

“While it is my determination that Kostopoulos did not deliver a check to an unsuspecting opponent, his actions caused injuries,” said NHL Senior Executive Vice President of Hockey Operations Colin Campbell.

Under the terms of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, Kostopoulos is considered a repeat offender. Accordingly, he forfeits $32,926.83 based on the number of games in the season (82), rather than the number of days (186). The money goes to the Players’ Emergency Assistance Fund.

added 7:35pm, from Habs Inside/Out,

A statement from Kostopoulos released by the Canadiens:

“First and foremost, I sincerely regret the injuries suffered by Mike Van Ryn. This is an unfortunate turn of events. I was just trying to get in on the forecheck and get the puck. I didn’t anticipate him turning and couldn’t stop.

“I was trying to finish my check and obviously it did not end up well. I never intend on injuring another player. I feel bad. I hope he is going to be all right and resume playing as quickly as possible.”

Unless you want to change the rules, there’s not much that could have been changed about the hit on Mike Van Ryn on Saturday night.

Van Ryn was doing his job, trying to make the toughest, most courageous play in the game, which is hustling back to get the puck in your own zone knowing you’re going to get drilled into the end boards.

Don’t tell me about the “tough guys” of the games, the guys who scrap. Tell me about the Van Ryns who make that play night after night. Those are the tough guys. Those are the players you need more of to make a tough hockey team.

So Van Ryn was making the right play. So too was Tom Kostopoulos, a 29-year-old winger from Mississauga who isn’t in the league to be fancy and score but to skate hard, finish his check and be a grinding forward.

A 6-3 Toronto victory, during which the home side outplayed Les Glorieux by a hefty margin, was marred in the first period when Leafs defenceman Mike Van Ryn was sent to hospital with a concussion, broken nose and broken left hand after he was smashed from behind into the boards by Canadiens forward Tom Kostopoulos. Later in the period, Leafs rookie defenceman Luke Schenn went hard into the boards when he was tripped by Andrei Kostitsyn.

Van Ryn, who was knocked out on the play, will be out for at least a month. Schenn was not hurt.

...But there were still concerns about Van Ryn’s play in his own end. He answered those concerns with a plus-15 season in 2005-06, only to be beset by wrist problems.

“The wrist problems are behind me,” he said. “It’s partly my fault because [in 2006-07] I kept playing because I wanted to try and help us get into the playoffs.”

Glancing down the Leafs’ roster brings a reflective smile to Van Ryn’s face. The road he has travelled in hockey has crossed paths with a handful of people in the Leafs’ organization. He played with Jamal Mayers in St. Louis. In Florida, he also skated with Joe Nieuwendyk, now Toronto’s special assistant to the general manager, and Niklas Hagman, who arrived in Toronto last night. Van Ryn also grew up in Western Ontario playing against Mark Bell and Boyd Devereaux.

More than six hours after Canadian website TSN predicted the Bryan McCabe-Mike Van Ryn would be completed, there was still no announcement forthcoming from either the Panthers or Toronto.

Call it yet another reminder that such deals usually aren’t as clear-cut as they appear on the surface.

While the key components of the deal were already in place, Toronto General Manager Cliff Fletcher told his beat writers that the two sides had very little communication prior to Tuesday, making it likely that some of the ancillary issues still had to be worked out.

The long rumoured deal was held up while the Panthers waited for the Leafs to pay a $2 million bonus due to McCabe on Sept. 1. With the payout, McCabe, 33, will earn $4.15 million in each of the final three seasons of the five-year, $29 million contract he signed with Toronto in 2006.

The Maple Leafs will receive defenceman Mike Van Ryn in exchange for McCabe and a fourth round pick in the 2010 Entry Draft.

The Panthers defenseman has endured four surgeries—three on his right wrist alone—as he has tried to regain the strength and power that fueled his slapshot and helped him become one of Florida’s top players at the position.

Van Ryn missed 62 games last season after having his second surgery on his right wrist in less than a year.

‘‘I feel awesome now,’’ said Van Ryn, who spent last week helping coach a youth camp in Coral Springs. ``I look at other guys around the league. It took [Edmonton Oilers defenseman] Sheldon Souray a while to get his right. It can be a difficult surgery. I’m just excited to play, try and contribute and help the Panthers win some games.’‘

While his teammates left for Washington on Tuesday, Panthers defenseman Mike Van Ryn went to receive a cortisone injection in his right wrist.

It’s likely the last resort for Van Ryn before he’s forced to have surgery on that wrist for the third time in a year and a half — surgery that would end the 28-year-old’s season and possibly his seven-year NHL career.